Capitalizing common multi-word names of animals?

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Adam Funk - 24 Sep 2008 20:51 GMT

I recently read Redmond O'Hanlon's book _In Trouble Again_, and
noticed that he (or perhaps his editor) consistently capitalizes the
first word of multi-word common or English names of animals. Here are
two examples from near the end of the book: "Two Greater
yellow-headed vultures, velvet-black, were..." and "A Squirrel cuckoo
was sitting on its nest."

I know it's customary to italicize a whole Linnaean name and
capitalize the genus or abbreviation ("I saw two _H. sapiens_ cooking
_Allium sativum_.") but I haven't noticed the similar practice (but
without italics) described above for common names except in this book.

Comments?

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Donna Richoux - 24 Sep 2008 21:40 GMT

> I recently read Redmond O'Hanlon's book _In Trouble Again_, and
> noticed that he (or perhaps his editor) consistently capitalizes the
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Comments?

A friend of ours, a biologist in Ontario, tends to capitalize common
names of species. It's a sort of personal statement. I see he has a page
on why (left side) and what opinions his colleagues had (right side)
here:

http://www.pinicola.ca/m1999b.htm

I can see the disambiguation part: a Yellow Warbler (or Yellow warbler)
is a species of warbler, but a yellow warbler might mean any sort of
warbler that was yellow.

His bit about expressing respect, I don't really get. We don't have to
capitalize everything we respect.

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Best -- Donna Richoux

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Adam Funk - 26 Sep 2008 12:37 GMT

> A friend of ours, a biologist in Ontario, tends to capitalize common
> names of species. It's a sort of personal statement. I see he has a page
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> is a species of warbler, but a yellow warbler might mean any sort of
> warbler that was yellow.

Good point.

> His bit about expressing respect, I don't really get. We don't have to
> capitalize everything we respect.

You mean "...capitalize Everything We Respect."

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jerry_friedman@yahoo.com - 24 Sep 2008 23:03 GMT

> I recently read Redmond O'Hanlon's book _In Trouble Again_, and
> noticed that he (or perhaps his editor) consistently capitalizes the
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Comments?

Capitalizing common names (Greater Yellow-headed Vulture) is common in
ornithology and bird guides, less so in other areas of whole-organism
biology. Donna has given the reason. The practice of capitalizing
only the first word strikes me as funny-looking. I do have two
popular bird books that do it the way your book does; both are edited
at least partly by the ornithologist Chris Perrins.

This has been the subject of acrimonious arguments at Wikipedia, you
may or may not want to know.

Incidentally, it's not uncommon for the subject matter of any book. I
have a "Hoyle" that capitalizes the names of games and a chess-
openings book that capitalizes the names of chess pieces and
openings. And I can think of another great example, but not right
now.

--
Jerry Friedman

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Adam Funk - 26 Sep 2008 12:40 GMT

> Capitalizing common names (Greater Yellow-headed Vulture) is common in
> ornithology and bird guides, less so in other areas of whole-organism
> biology. Donna has given the reason. The practice of capitalizing
> only the first word strikes me as funny-looking. I do have two
> popular bird books that do it the way your book does; both are edited
> at least partly by the ornithologist Chris Perrins.

I tend to look at field guides mainly for plants, so that's probably
why I hadn't noticed.

> This has been the subject of acrimonious arguments at Wikipedia, you
> may or may not want to know.

Hmm.

> Incidentally, it's not uncommon for the subject matter of any book. I
> have a "Hoyle" that capitalizes the names of games and a chess-
> openings book that capitalizes the names of chess pieces and
> openings. And I can think of another great example, but not right
> now.

(But ISTR that a lot of chess openings are named after people anyway).

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Mike M - 26 Sep 2008 16:19 GMT

> > Capitalizing common names (Greater Yellow-headed Vulture) is common in
> > ornithology and bird guides, less so in other areas of whole-organism
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>
> (But ISTR that a lot of chess openings are named after people anyway).

So are animals. Grevy's zebra, Przewalski's horse, etc. Should "Horse"
and "Zebra" be capitalised, though ?

Mike M

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Adam Funk - 29 Sep 2008 21:03 GMT

>> > Incidentally, it's not uncommon for the subject matter of any book. I
>> > have a "Hoyle" that capitalizes the names of games and a chess-
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> So are animals. Grevy's zebra, Przewalski's horse, etc. Should "Horse"
> and "Zebra" be capitalised, though ?

I'm not sure. I can't explain why I'd write "Fermat's Last Theorem"
but "Russell's paradox", even though I've seen "Fermat's last theorem"
and "Russell's Paradox".

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Mark Brader - 29 Sep 2008 22:15 GMT

> I can't explain why I'd write "Fermat's Last Theorem" but
> "Russell's paradox" ...

Simple. "Fermat's last theorem" would be a description; "Fermat's
Last Theorem" is a name. As a description, the phrase is factually
wrong. As a name, it doesn't have to be right; that just makes it a
misnomer.

The claim made by the name is that it was a theorem -- a statement
that had been mathematically proved -- and was the last one proved
by Fermat. In fact it was not proved at all until our own time, more
than 300 years after his death. Fermat *claimed* he had a proof,
in a marginal note he wrote in a book, but he never produced one,
and it is generally accepted today that he must have been mistaken.

"Russell's paradox", on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable as
a descriptive phrase.

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Adam Funk - 30 Sep 2008 14:27 GMT

>> I can't explain why I'd write "Fermat's Last Theorem" but
>> "Russell's paradox" ...
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> in a marginal note he wrote in a book, but he never produced one,
> and it is generally accepted today that he must have been mistaken.

Good point; would "Fermat's last conjecture" also be wrong for a
slightly different reason (I don't know if it was the last one he
made)? (OTOH, "Fermat's most famous conjecture" would be accurate.)

> "Russell's paradox", on the other hand, is perfectly reasonable as
> a descriptive phrase.

"Russell's Paradox" is also used (reasonably, I think) as a name.

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / September 2008

Capitalizing common multi-word names of animals?